How Jennifer Lawrence and Arcaea Split Roles on mes° Ahead of a 27 October Launch

Jennifer Lawrence has put her name to a haircare brand called mes°. She revealed the brand on Instagram on 16 October 2026, and Cosmetics Business described the range as “biodesigned hair care” in a report published on 19 October. The brand is set to launch on 27 October.

The launch pairs a celebrity’s design role with a biotech company’s engineering work. The public details so far cover the announcement, the launch date and the division of roles between Lawrence and Arcaea. They do not yet cover products or formulations, and no source names the brand’s owner.

The Announcement and the Launch Date

Lawrence revealed the brand on her Instagram account on 16 October 2026, according to Cosmetics Business. The post linked to the mes° website from her bio, and Cosmetics Business says there is a sign-up online for people who want to “get curious”.

The teaser itself was a carousel of hairstyles from her film roles. The launch is set for 27 October 2026, eleven days after the announcement. The Cosmetics Business report, published three days after the post, gives the same launch date.

Taken together, the dated events run in this order: the Instagram post on 16 October 2026, the report on 19 October 2026 and the launch on 27 October 2026. The launch falls on the same calendar date as Arcaea’s 2021 Series A announcement, five years earlier, which is covered below.

Arcaea’s Series A
SynBioBeta reports that Arcaea’s $78 million Series A was announced on 27 October 2021, with CHANEL and Givaudan as strategic investors.

Who Designed the Brand and Who Engineered It

Cosmetics Business reports that Lawrence designed mes° and that Arcaea, a biotech beauty company, engineered it. The report takes both credits from the brand’s website and gives no further detail on either role. It also says the range claims to offer “a new perspective on beauty.”

No source names the company that owns mes°. No terms between Lawrence and Arcaea appear in these sources, so the working relationship can be described only through the two roles reported so far.

Arcaea’s homepage does not mention mes° or Lawrence. It describes the company as a biotech beauty company that combines biology, creative thinking and curiosity to invent products that could not exist before.

For readers, the sources credit Lawrence with the design and Arcaea with the engineering. They do not say how the two divide the work on products, or whether either holds a stake in the other.

What Arcaea Says Its Biology Does

SynBioBeta describes Arcaea as a company launched on the Ginkgo Bioworks platform, where it was incubated and formed under the name Kalo Ingredients LLC. The company says it uses DNA sequencing, biological engineering and fermentation to create new ingredients and product experiences.

According to SynBioBeta, Arcaea treats biology as a creative tool for self-expression. Its stated aim is a beauty supply chain that does not rely on petrochemicals or on harvesting and depleting natural resources. It says it plans to culture safe, sustainable ingredients, including some that have previously been out of reach.

The homepage credits a leader named only as Jasmina, who has assembled biologists, chemists and engineers. It names no specific products.

For readers, the sources describe Arcaea’s work as ingredients and product experiences made through sequencing, engineering and fermentation. They do not say which ingredients, if any, are used in mes°.

Funding, Investors and Leadership

SynBioBeta reports a $78 million Series A announced on 27 October 2021 and posted the next day from Boston. The announcement describes the funding as building a foundation for the beauty industry through “expressive biology.” CHANEL and Givaudan were named as strategic investors. Wittington Ventures, Viking Global Investors and Cascade Investment L.L.C. were named as financial backers.

Jasmina Aganovic is named as chief executive. SynBioBeta says she is an MIT graduate in chemical and biological engineering with more than a decade of beauty industry experience, including at Fresh, Living Proof and Mother Dirt. She joined Ginkgo Bioworks as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence and spent about two years building Arcaea’s foundation.

Jason Kelly, co-founder and CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, said the company was thrilled to see Arcaea launch and begin its work in beauty through biology. The release lists Ginkgo as trading on the NYSE under the ticker DNA. It also carries forward-looking statements tied to Ginkgo’s business combination with Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp.

Sources differ on how Arcaea relates to Ginkgo. SynBioBeta describes a company incubated on Ginkgo’s platform, while Personal Care Insights, writing in 2022, calls Arcaea a subsidiary of Ginkgo Bioworks.

The sources cover a teaser, a launch date and a split of roles, not the products.

The 2022 Olaplex Partnership

On 31 January 2022, Arcaea and Olaplex announced a partnership to develop new haircare ingredients and hair and scalp care programs, according to Personal Care Insights. The programs are aimed at professional, specialty retail and direct-to-consumer channels.

Olaplex is contributing its technology and haircare expertise. The report gives no financial terms for the partnership. According to the report, JuE Wong, president and CEO of Olaplex, says Olaplex will provide technology to help solve real consumer haircare problems.

The report describes the ingredient work as a supply chain that does not depend on petrochemicals or on harvesting natural resources. That is the same aim SynBioBeta gives for Arcaea in its 2021 announcement.

The same report says Olaplex was one of the strategic and financial investors in Arcaea’s $78 million Series A, alongside Cascade Investment, Viking Global, CHANEL, Givaudan and Wittington Ventures. It does not give the amount Olaplex invested.

Aganovic said the partnership reflects Olaplex’s insight and expertise in hair care, in what she described as an “industry ripe for innovation.” No source links the Olaplex partnership or its investment to mes°.

What Has Not Been Announced

Product names, formulations, prices and retail channels for mes° are not described. No source names the brand’s owner or describes the terms between Lawrence and Arcaea.

The sources cover a teaser, a launch date and a split of roles, not the products.

Three points remain open: who owns mes°, what terms govern the relationship with Arcaea, and which products the launch will include.

Based on the sources, the information is limited to the launch date, the design credit and the engineering credit. Product types, performance claims, pricing and retail locations are not described.